Today, I got beef with NHL disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan. Now, Shanahan is an all time great player, having won three Stanley Cups with the Detroit Red Wings. He has 656 goals and over 1,500 games played. I enjoyed watching Shanahan play when he was a Ranger from 2006-08, as he was a great leader and a good mentor to the young talent on the team. Now, Shanahan’s current job is disciplining players who dish out illegal hits. Shanahan, in my opinion has been wildly inconsistent with his decisions league wide since 2011. For every suspect hit, Shanahan reviews the play and makes a video to help explain how he made a decision on a suspension or fine. I don’t understand how Shanahan got the job, considering that he has over 2,000 penalty minutes, and delivered multiple cheap shots throughout his career. But when it comes to the Rangers, Shanahan always seems to turn a blind eye.

This past saturday, the Rangers were in Montreal facing the Canadiens when Max Pacioretty left his feet and slammed defenseman Ryan McDonagh into the boards. Here is the video:

The Rangers went on to lose 3-0, and Rangers coach John Tortorella opened his post game press conference by asking the media “Let me ask the first question, how high did Max Pacioretty jump on his hit? Over/under?” The next day, it was announced that Pacioretty would talk with Shanahan about the hit, and right then and there I said to myself he won’t get suspended. The ruling came out…NO SUSPENSION!

This is the explanation:

“The Department of Player Safety examined boarding and/or charging infractions as the basis for potential Supplemental Discipline during the hearing.

Pacioretty was interviewed at length and the Department of Player Safety decided that Supplemental Discipline was not appropriate.”

That is a disgrace of an explanation, and clearly Shanahan has some screws loose in his head. Why was there a hearing if no suspension or fine was coming? Did you look at Pacioretty’s past history, which includes suspensions? You do that with Matt Cooke, why not Pacioretty? McDonagh is most likely going to miss games, which is a HUGE blow to the Rangers. How is there NOTHING?! It truly boggles my mind and makes me wonder if Shanahan got inappropriately touched during his time here with the Rangers. Something must have happened, cause he has hated us ever since he left. If this happened to Sidney Crosby, would the hit have been a suspension? I could bet everything I own that it would have been a suspension if Crosby was involved.

Here is a rule about leaving your feet, taken from NHL.com (with their great sentence structure…)

Rule 42.1 Charging: A minor or major penalty shall be imposed on a player who skates or JUMPS INTO, or charges an opponent in any manner.

And here is a picture of the jumping hit:

Yep, no suspension for this play, despite the rules stating a player shoudln’t leave his feet when delivering a hit. It may not be charging, but the fact that he left his feet should have been enough to even just fine Pacioretty.

This isn’t the first time the Rangers have been perplexed by the leagues ruling. Go back to last years playoffs, when Carl Hagelin got a THREE GAME suspension for what Shanahan called an “intentional elbow”, despite Hagelin never receiving a suspension or even a five minute major EVER, dating back to him playing hockey as a kid!

Carl Hagelin gets three games for this, but Pacioretty gets nothing?

Brian Boyle gets jumped and punched over and over by Matt Carkner, who gets suspended for one game, but Pacioretty gets nothing?

There are tons of different examples of Shanahan’s inconsistencies, and it is laughable that the NHL appointed someone to discipline players who, besides playing hockey, has no experience in making these calls. Shanahan played most of his career where the rules are different, and I think Shanahan should sit down and go over his rule book some more because he is clearly making (or not making in this case) some atrocious calls. How can we take out these hits and make the game safer if you DON’T FOLLOW YOUR OWN RULES?!

Click on this link to see how Shanahan makes his decisions to suspend someone or not, pretty funny.

Thank you for the read Maggie! I don’t want to accuse Shanahan of turning a blind eye, however, whenever a Rangers player seems to get hit or hurt, there is no suspension. For example, I didnt put it in my article, but in last years playoffs, Boyle also got hit up high near the head by Ottawa’s Chris Neil. Despite suffering a concussion, no review came from this..very weird. NHL needs to be CONSISTENT in its rulings, and this hit on Ryan McDonagh should have been a suspension no doubt.

Youre right, there was a penalty, I gotta make that correction thanks for the heads up. But I agree, I don’t know what Shanny has against us, but he really seems to hate the Rangers. Thats why I am wondering if something happened to him during his time here….

The problem that I had also with the play against Mcd was the official right next to the hit didn’t make the call and he was looking directly at it less than 10 feet away. It was the official at center ice that made the call.

My problem with the Rangers is gabby, Richards, and the Coach! I’m sick and tired of Gabby skating up the wing crossing the line (like Nedved or Gomez) and hitting the breaks like he does 9 out of 10 times. He never tries to go around the D anymore and to the net like he’s afraid to get hit. Richards and his blind giveaway passes that he does at least 5 times a game are ridiculous…. Torts i think has lost the Team… How can he say they played well against the Jets when they only gave 20 mins of effort.

It’s a joke having one ex player who like you said had over 2000 penalty minutes making those decisions… Totally Lame

Haha i dont know if you watched HBO’s 24/7 last year, but there is one clip where Flyers coach Peter Laviolette is seen screaming at a ref “TYPICAL MONTREAL” when the refs missed a call lol it was so funny, but I dont get how the ref right next to McD missed it.

In regards to Gabby, he isn’t skating that hard plain and simple. I dont know if its Torts system that wears him down, but Gabby coasts wayyyy to much and the fact that Torts wants Gabby to watch a second year player (Hags) to learn how to skate hard, well thats sad. Ive said since last summer that the summer of 2014, when we have a ton of free agents, I would let Gabby walk. He will be 32-33 and we will have higher priorities to sign. It would suck, and I do like Gabby, but he definitely should walk unless he takes a friendly deal.

Ps, the team as a whole needs to SHOOT and hit the net, its so annoying lol, good comments, keep coming back for more sports, and thanks!